


Sing Canary Sing

by elutherya



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Getting Together, M/M, Unspecified Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29866302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elutherya/pseuds/elutherya
Summary: “Did you ever have dreams?”The question is deceptively simple, but he knows that it’s not about if he dreams when he sleeps. He clenches his teeth, a small delay in answering the question. A question that he knows answering will leave him feeling raw and exposed. Delays are only temporary and sooner or later he’ll have to answer. “Of course I did. We all have dreams. I don’t remember what they were and I haven’t had one in a long time, but I remember that I used to have them.”
Relationships: Kang Yuchan | Chan/Kim Byeongkwan
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33





	Sing Canary Sing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on an experimental writing kick, oop.

“Did you ever have dreams?”

Another traveller, another question, but this time the question is enough to have the boy freezing.

He looks towards the stranger, taking in his sandy blond hair and brown eyes that shine like gold in the sunlight. He’s pretty, beautiful in a way that if he didn’t know better, he would mistake him for something like himself. Someone dragged into the woods and lake on nothing more than a feeling, only to be swallowed whole by the water and trees.

The question is deceptively simple, but he knows that it’s not about if he dreams when he sleeps. He clenches his teeth, a small delay in answering the question. A question that he knows answering will leave him feeling raw and exposed. Delays are only temporary and sooner or later he’ll have to answer.

“Of course I did. We all have dreams. I don’t remember what they were and I haven’t had one in a long time, but I remember that I used to have them.”

The stranger tilts his head, expression suddenly sad, nearly pitying.

He looks away, back over the lake and away from the bright eyed traveller who had disrupted the peace he had had for weeks.

“I only get one question, right?”

His voice locks up in his throat, leaving them sitting in silence, which is an answer in itself to the strangers question.

The stranger pushes himself up to his feet, dusting himself off. He pauses there, instead of leaving immediately like everyone before him has done.

“I’m Byeongkwan,” he offers his name easily, before turning and starting back down the path he had arrived from.

His name hangs in the air, a name that will be left behind in the years that come. Something that gets forgotten alongside the faces of the strangers that come to ask him their questions, giving him company for a few minutes, only to leave him by himself once again. Names and faces, they’re meaningless when he’s never seen the same person twice.

* * *

Time is a fickle thing. 

It moves all too slowly and quickly, until it blurs together into something he can barely make sense of. Weeks, months and years, they’re meaningless when he’s been sitting here, dangling his feet in the lake for so long. There’s no seasons to tell the passing years, just the sporadic visitors that walk up the path that tell him time has passed since he last looked up from the lake.

It’s instinct that tells him to look up, long before he can hear the telltale sound of leaves crunching under someone’s feet. 

He waits, only giving the barest reaction when the man walking up the path is familiar.

 _Byeongkwan_ , a name given so easily that he had never expected to need. 

He trails up the path, an oddity to what the rules of this place are. It should make fear crawl up his spine, that someone has found a way past the binds that keep people from returning, but he knows the forest and the lake would only allow it if there was a purpose behind it.

“I wondered if the one question rule only counted against visits, but I’m taking it that you’ve never had someone come back.”

It’s a statement, rather than a question, one that he doesn’t feel compelled to answer. Instead he smiles, curios despite the way nerves make his fingers twist into the soft fabric of his pants. He kicks his foot through the water, a small comfort that he’s well looked after here and that he’s never had a need to mistrust the rules of this place, not when they’ve protected him for so long.

“I had another question that I wanted to ask,” Byeongkwan says as he lowers himself down to the ground beside him. He hikes his knees up, laying his arm across them so that he can rest his chin on them. He’s left ten feet between them, a small kindness of space that some have refused to give him.

“What kind of question?” It makes him wonder what kind of question would grant him the right to return, what kind of question would give him the path to walk through the forest and up to the lake.

Byeongkwan smiles, something small, as if he’s letting him in on a secret he hasn’t shared with anyone else. “Do you have a name?”

It’s not what he expects, again.

Another question that no one has thought to ask over the time of him being here. It surprises him, but he doesn’t stumble over his answer when he gives it.

“My name is Yuchan.”

* * *

“Does she love me back?”

Yuchan looks away from the man shuffling on the path, sweeping his feet through the water in front of him. He doesn’t know the man, doesn’t know the woman he’s talking about, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the answer. “No, she can’t love you back when how you feel for her isn’t love.”

There’s the weight of something sick in his answer, an understanding of just what it means. _How you feel for her isn’t love_ , a twist of a knife to a man expecting a different answer. A man expecting something about genuine care, rather than the obsession he has.

“That’s not right, you’re lying to me.”

Yuchan tenses in expectation of the hands that will grab at him to haul him to his feet, but they never settle on him.

“Fuck!” The man curses and Yuchan startles as he watches him tip over into the lake with a splash. He looks to the side sharply to catch Byeongkwan standing there, breathing heavy as if he had been running. In the water, the man surges back up to the surface, spluttering as he pushes himself back towards the bank.

The man attempts to pull himself up, anger lining his face and Yuchan kicks his feet through the water again. He doesn’t miss the way the man’s eyes go wide as he falls back into the water on more than a simple slip along the bank. He gasps, struggling against the waist deep water, before finally managing to scramble back up the bank and to solid ground. He doesn’t bother going after Byeongkwan, only takes one quick glance at Yuchan, before running back down the path.

Byeongkwan watches him go, shoulders tense and hands clenched into fists at his sides. It’s not until the man is out of sight that Byeongkwan finally turns back to him. 

“Are you okay?” Yuchan can’t help the breathless laugh that escapes him at the way Byeongkwan’s expression immediately pinches once he realizes he’s asked a question. He shakes his head though, before crouching down beside him and waits.

“I’m alright. I wasn’t scared of him, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything.” Yuchan answers, reaching out a tentative hand to rest his fingers against the back of Byeongkwan’s. “Thank you.”

Byeongkwan sighs, his other hand reaching up to cover Yuchan’s. “I want to ask you how often this happens, but that would be a silly waste of a question.”

The statement has something warm unfurling in Yuchan’s chest and he can’t help but smile at Byeongkwan. Another promise of return, on top of the fact that Byeongkwan had made his way back a third time despite the way the rules turned everyone else away from a second question. “Why waste it when you didn’t get to ask me what you came here for?”

“Exactly, why waste it when there are more important questions to ask.” Byeongkwan grins, fingers tightening around Yuchan’s for a moment. “Wait, you can’t answer any questions, but you can ask them.”

Yuchan quirks a brow, turning away from Byeongkwan to hide the way he can’t stop smiling. He doesn’t respond, but he also doesn’t pull his hand from Byeongkwan’s and maybe that's answer enough.

* * *

Another visit and Yuchan pulls himself up to his feet to greet Byeongkwan as he makes his way up the path again. _Four_. There’s no mistaking that this isn’t some fluke, a magic twist of three. It goes beyond the rules Yuchan has come to know and he wonders just what the woods and the water have planned. 

“Hey,” Byeongkwan greets and Yuchan gives a small wave in response.

“I thought about what I wanted to ask,” he states when he gets close, that ten feet of space trimmed down to three. Yuchan nods, catching the way Byeongkwan’s expression isn’t as bright, is a little more guarded than it has been in his previous visits. Despite the discomfort of the last, he looks far more tense this time. “I’m sorry if this question makes you uncomfortable, but I would like to know.”

Yuchan hesitates, no idea what Byeongkwan might ask him that would make him uncomfortable. Most wouldn’t care, asking for whatever answers they think most important, but here, Byeongkwan seems genuinely worried about how Yuchan will feel. The moment passes and Yuchan gives a tentative nod of his head. “You can ask.”

“Are you happy?”

 _Ah,_ Yuchan goes still, sudden;y understanding. He closes his eyes, unable to meet Byeongkwan’s gaze knowing the answer he’s about to give. 

“No.”

* * *

There’s a bag on Byeongkwan’s back the next time he arrives, far later than he normally arrives. Dusk is close and Yuchan can’t help but twist his hands into fists in his lap, the thought of Byeongkwan making his way back down the path in the dark a terrifying thought.

Too many creatures in the woods that come out at night, too many places with uneven footing that he could stumble over.

He opens his mouth to usher Byeongkwan to go back, to turn back around before night starts to fall, but Byeongkwan asks his question first. “Are you lonely?”

“Yes.”

The answer is out of his mouth instead of the “You should go back quick” and he pales at the realization of just what he’s said. Yuchan’s breath hitches and he stumbles up to his feet, unable to stop the way he’s trembling as Byeongkwan finally comes to a stop in front of him. The look on his face is sad and it makes Yuchan want to drop his gaze in shame, but there’s fingers under his chin before he can, forcing him to meet Byeongkwan’s eyes in the quickly fading light.

“I don’t have to ask you questions to want to stay. Let me spend the night and keep you company. You can be the one to ask me questions this time.”

Yuchan swallows, knows Byeongkwan can see the way he’s shaking, can see just how split open and raw he feels.

He can say no, tell Byeongkwan to go on his way, to leave before it really is too late for him to go back safely.

_Are you lonely?_

The question stings, one he has refused to ask himself in all the time he’s been here, but has always known the answer intimately. Each visit a pale substitute for the comfort of others. He closes his eyes, sinking against the curve of Byeongkwan’s hand on his chin.

“Please stay.”

* * *

“Who is he?”

Yuchan looks over his shoulder to where Byeongkwan is sprawled out across the grass, breathing soft and slow as he naps in the sunlight. Another day, another impromptu visit, but Byeongkwan has yet to ask his question.

“Someone I think that I love,” Yuchan answers, turning back to the stranger and smiling when he watches the realization cross the man's face. Realization that he wasted his one question on a slip of the tongue. It may be a waste for the stranger, but the answer has Yuchan laughing, something bright and loud that rings through the trees.

Through all of Byeongkwan’s visits, the ones where he would sit for hours and let Yuchan ask him questions and leave before asking his own. The visits filled with Byeongkwan sitting quietly as he listened to Yuchan talk about everything, letting him speak and twist his own words together instead of answering yet another question.

Time may move too slow and too quickly all at once, letting Yuchan forget faces and questions, but he remembers every one of Byeongkwan’s visits until they feel like they span over weeks and months. Time may move too slow and too quickly, but Yuchan thinks he wouldn’t mind recounting the time he’s spent in Byeongkwan’s company.

The stranger leaves, his shoulders sagged as he makes his way back the way he came.

Yuchan laughs, not at the man's misfortune, but at the realization of the answer that was his own to have.

He turns back over, startling when he catches Byeongkwan watching him with a fond smile on his face.

“You heard?”

Byeongkwan nods, pushing himself up from the grass to sitting, “I did.”

There’s so many things he could ask and Yuchan feels a shiver of worry, that hesitancy that maybe he had overstepped in a space he wasn’t meant to. It quickly disappears when Byeongkwan reaches out a hand, palm millimeters from Yuchan’s cheek, letting him be the one to tip his head to the side and press against the warmth of his hand.

“Can I kiss you?”

Yuchan blushes at the question and for once, loses his voice on the first question asked.

He gives a nod of his head and Byeongkwan grins.

* * *

Byeongkwan makes one last trip up the path and Yuchan kicks his feet through the still water of the lake.

He keeps his eyes on the water, but listens carefully to the way Byeongkwan drops his bag and jacket to the ground behind them. He pulls off his hiking boots and socks, only then sitting down beside Yuchan and lowering his own feet into the water.

It’s quiet, neither of them feeling the need to say anything quite yet.

Yuchan tips to the side, resting his cheek against Byeongkwan’s shoulder as he takes Byeongkwan’s hand in his own. It’s peaceful, the sunlight refracting up off the lake and the wind rustling through the trees behind them.

Byeongkwan clears his throat and Yuchan waits, no longer worried about what answers he’ll have to give to Byeongkwan’s questions.

“Can I stay?”

The question is selfless and selfish, all at the same time.

Yuchan smiles, his fingers tightening around Byeongkwan’s, before he lets himself answer.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to come talk to me about these boys, possible prompts or anything at all: you can find me over at [twitter](https://twitter.com/Elesteria). I'm always down to chat at new people! You can also find me at [curiouscat](https://t.co/1yfgiUBE0r) if you have any thoughts, prompts or stuff that you're too nervous to say in public.


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